The United States will ask Egypt to crack down on the smuggling of weapons into Gaza in order to improve the quality of life for Israeli civilians in southern Israel.
Well not really. (Isn’t it remarkable how important Palestinian civilians are in the scheme of things and how unimportant Israeli civilians are?)
The U.S. is going to ask Egypt to mediate between Hamas and Israel to reach a ceasefire in the Palestinian territories upon a request by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), according to chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei on Thursday. When U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Ramallah on Tuesday, she agreed with the PNA “on a mechanism to calm down the situation in Gaza Strip through Egyptian mediation,” Qurei told daily al-Watan of Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that Rice’s assistant for Near East affairs, David Welch, will visit Cairo on Thursday to discuss with the Egyptian side the extent of Hamas commitment to stop the rocket attacks into southern Israel.
Talks won’t stop the smugglers from smuggling the rockets into Gaza. So they won’t stop the rockets from being fired into Israel.
The PNA halted the negotiations last week in response to a deadly Israeli army incursion and airstrikes against Gaza where more than 125 Palestinians were killed in less than a week.
And how many Fatah members were killed when Hamas took over Gaza? That hasn’t diminished Abbas’s interest in some sort of arrangement with Hamas. His halt in talks with Israel, was pure posturing.
Of course it appears now that he’s in high dudgeon he’s likely to renege on his commitment to Secretary Rice. (via memeorandum) See more here.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
